Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)
HALL 1 - The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic (400,000-6000 B.C.) (Viola T. Dobosi)
HALL 1 The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic (400,000-6000 B.C.) The Palaeolithic began at the time, when the first tool was consciously made. This period spans several hundreds of thousands of years. Its exact duration varies from region to region, depending on the date of the earliest authentic evidence for human settlement in a particular area. The close of the Palaeolithic can be more securely dated: it ended 12 thousand years ago, when the last Ice Age came to a close. Of the many Ice Ages in the Earth's history, the last one coincided with the biological evolution of man and the first phase of the long process leading to the emergence of organised societies. Mild and humid periods alternated with harsh and dry ones in cycles of tens of thousands of years. Man's continuous and successful adaptation to the changing climate and environment accelerated prehistoric man's biological and social development. Early humans ensured their survival during the longest period of human history by hunting and gathering. No matter which subsistence strategy was dominant, the key to human survival was the preservation of the delicate balance between the available natural food resources and their use. The first human occupants {Homo erectus) of the Carpathian Basin were familiar with the use of fire, the perhaps most powerful natural resource. In the course of the millennia, the mental and physical abilities of these early hominids improved significantly, and they became capable of performing increasingly complex tasks. They made various tools and implements from flint, antler, animal bone and wood. The middle phase of the Palaeolithic was populated by Neanderthal communities. They faced many new challenges with the passage of time, and prehistoric man's tool-kit was enlarged and implements were made with an improved design. Early communities sought shelter in caves or man-made, artificial structures. They buried their dead. Their archaeological heritage includes an assortment of objects which were not crucial for day-to-day survival. These objects reflect a desire for understanding the world beyond what was directly experienced. The late phase of the Palaeolithic saw the 17 flourishing of hunter societies. The settlement finds indicate successful hunting strategies and the existence of an exchange network linking faraway regions. Lovely artefacts, musical instruments and a truly captivating art is the heritage of a rich spiritual life. Inter-group co-operation ensured the survival of our ancestors during the final harsh millennia of the Palaeolithic. 1. CHRONOLOGY The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. If this immense period of time is regarded as one year, the first dinosaurs appeared in mid-December and the very first hominid-like creatures evolved around 9 p.m. on New Year's eve. The early history of man and his long and arduous childhood lasted no more than a few seconds in the Earth's history. The creature whose 8 million years old remains were found at Rudabánya in the 1970s was one link in the long chain of this evolutionary process. Prehistory begins at that perhaps never precisely definable moment about 2 million years ago, when our distant ancestors made the first tools somewhere in the heartland of Africa. The symbol of this period in Hungary is the first find which was assigned to the Palaeolithic. It was found in 1892 in Miskolc, on the bank of the Szinva Stream, when the foundations for János Bársony 's house were dug. Hence its name: the hand-axe from the Bársony house (Fig. 7). The discovery of this hand-axe, unsurpassed either in size or in workmanship by later finds, was followed by many successful and dynamic decades of Palaeolithic research in Hungary. 2. THE ICE AGE About 1—1.5 million years ago, groups of biped hominid men and women with an 8-900 cm 1 large brain, capable of making
